Beer Guide 2014: The Commons

The biggest Belgian tourist attraction since the Atomium,
the half-dozen glimmering tanks of Mike Wright’s two-year-old brewery
attract a steady trickle of pilgrims to a vast, chilly warehouse hidden
in the redundant blocks of Industrial Southeast Portland. What the
visitors find is little more than a gift shop: a chalkboard doodled with
gnomes, a spare selection of T-shirts and hoodies, and tasting trays of
beers so brightly colored, the flights look like Crayola boxes. The
tastes are equally dazzling, from a Pear Honey Saison whose sweet punch
hides a pastoral finish, to the welcoming pucker of a black-currant Bier
Royale—one of our top 10 beers of the year (see page 18) and still the
only sour beer I’ve ever bothered to finish. Being allowed to sample
these wonders in such a utilitarian space (where you are welcome to set
your glass on a barrel, but not encouraged to sit down) is a flashback
to elementary-school field trips to post offices and printing presses:
places so filled with everyday magic you never wanted to leave. AARON MESH.

Drink this: Wright’s first production, Urban
Farmhouse Ale, remains the pinnacle of the Belgian renaissance. It was
our Beer of the Year in 2013 and there’s no Portland beer I’d pick over
it.